Trade Republic—Trade Republic refused retroactive interest payments to customers despite settling over the same misleading ad
In April 2024 Trade Republic agreed to stop running advertising for its 'Zinsen auf Dein Cash' (interest on your cash) offer after Verbraucherzentrale Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg consumer protection agency, found the ads did not clearly disclose that customers had to manually 'activate' interest in the app to receive it; in July 2026 the parties reached a court settlement requiring the company to stop the non-transparent advertising. Despite this, Trade Republic is refusing to retroactively pay customers who missed interest payments because they never knew activation was required, citing the same lack of activation the settlement found was inadequately disclosed. The consumer agency's Niels Nauhauser publicly called the refusal 'audacious' and said affected customers should not have to accept it.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Protection | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.286 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.57)× agency (negligent ×0.5)
Evidence (1 signal)
Verbraucherzentrale Baden-Wurttemberg: Trade Republic refuses to pay owed interest
Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg consumer protection agency publicly accused Trade Republic of refusing to retroactively pay customers interest they missed because the company's advertising did not clearly disclose that interest payments required manual in-app activation, despite a July 2026 court settlement over the same misleading advertising.